Sunday, April 9, 2017

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- New York's governor is finding out that, in politics, something as simple as a 25-cent cup of milk can turn sour fast.

Just last summer, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo was hailed as a hero for stepping in with a state subsidy to prevent a price hike to 50 cents for the popular cups of white and chocolate milk at New York State Fair's beloved Milk Bar, which for generations has been a shrine to the state's dairy industry complete with life-size people sculpted in butter.

But only half of the expected subsidy ever came through, and the nonprofit that's been operating the Milk Bar on the Syracuse fairgrounds for 64 years announced it is pulling out and putting the blame squarely on Cuomo, saying it will only consider returning "if Cuomo is no longer governor."

"Our group will lie dormant for the next 24 months to see if there is a change of administration in 2019," Gary Raiti, president of New York State Dairy Exhibits Inc., told the group's members in a recent letter.

Dairy Exhibits, which has kept the 7-ounce cups of milk at 25 cents since 1983, has long said it can't pay its bills at that price.

Before the fair kicked off its 13-day end-of-summer run last year, state agriculture officials briefly approved the price hike to 50 cents. But when public objections were raised, Cuomo nixed it and instead promised $90,000 to help with expenses. A fair spokesman confirmed the state provided only about half that amount by putting the dairy building's employees on the state payroll.

With the state refusing a milk-price hike or larger subsidy, Raiti said his organization is severing ties with the state and selling off the dairy building's equipment.

Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi did not respond to repeated requests for comment. For Cuomo, who some have speculated as a possible presidential candidate in 2020, the milk bar brouhaha is a controversy he didn't need in the same week the Legislature was a week late in hammering out a $153 billion budget deal.

News of a possible shutdown of the Milk Bar prompted hundreds of comments on the website of the fairgrounds' hometown newspaper, the Syracuse Post-Standard. Some bemoaned the loss of a beloved tradition. Some said even at 50 cents, the milk was a bargain. Some were mystified anyone would stand in line for milk.

And some questioned why the state couldn't come up with the full $90,000 subsidy at a time when the governor has been touting a $70 million vision for an aerial gondola and other big projects to upgrade the New York State Fairgrounds.

In the end, fair officials say there's no need to worry: The Milk Bar, cheese-carving booth and the rest of the dairy building's delights will go on as always.

"We'll hire a superintendent and operate this building just like we do dozens of others at the fair," said fair spokesman Dave Bullard. "Our goal is to make sure when someone comes into the dairy building this year, it looks no different than last year."

Troy Waffner, acting fair director, said the change will allow the state to modernize the building and possibly open the Milk Bar during events outside the fair's end-of-summer run.

"We'd even like to get it back to being a 'Rainbow Milk Bar,' like it was years ago," Waffner said. "We'd like to serve not only chocolate and white milk, but strawberry, mint, bacon and whatever else we can come up with."

Sam Sampere, a 52-year-old physics professor at Syracuse University, who has been going to the fair since he was a kid, said he'd rather pay 50 cents for milk than have state taxpayers subsidize the cost. But he's glad the Milk Bar will still be there.

"It's just one of those goofy traditions you have to do at the fair," Sampere said. "You have to get a baked potato. You have to get fried dough. And you have to get a cup of milk."

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.